The present invention relates to a system and method of extracting and providing attribute information corresponding to components such as equipment, instruments and process lines included in a computer aided design system drawing.
Computer aided design (CAD) systems such as AutoCAD.RTM. and Intergraph.RTM. have been used in creating drawings such as a Process & Instrumentation Diagram (P&ID) used in, for example, a process involved in a plant operation. However, if a drawing such as a P&ID is designed by one company and provided to a second company for operation in the second company's plant, some computer aided design systems such as AutoCAD.RTM. do not provide a design of the system including a listing of attributes corresponding to each individual piece of equipment, instrument or process line in the system. Therefore, if such a system is designed by a first company and provided to a second company for operation in their plant, for example, the second company cannot easily obtain detailed information about each individual piece of equipment from a view of the AutoCAD.RTM. design system drawing. Therefore, a need has arisen to provide information via attributes and known database software relative to a computer aided design drawing for each individual piece of equipment, instrument or process line in the computer aided design drawing.